Taking a page from the corporate renewable energy purchasing trend, Squeaky aims to help UK small businesses make the move from dirty electricity sources to ‘squeaky clean’ ones, at no additional cost.
The UK startup Squeaky sees the business energy market as “broken” and is on a mission to fix it, and to do so in a way that will continue the trend of businesses moving to cleaner electricity, but without any price premiums. That’s an audacious goal, especially when considering that the company’s focus isn’t big business, where high volumes may help corporations cut good deals, especially on long-term agreements. But the team believes it is well positioned to deliver on its promises, as the principals are experienced in corporate electricity purchasing, and are able to now bring that expertise to bear for “all businesses.”
“Squeaky clean energy, for the same price as dirty energy.”
The magic sauce, so to speak, of Squeaky is in cutting out the middleman, because although there are options for buying renewable energy through existing utility agreements, all too often that comes at a price premium. And for smaller businesses, choosing to make the switch to green electricity, but at a higher cost, is a bit of a hard sell, and one that doesn’t make a whole lot of financial sense. Switching to clean electricity can help UK businesses with their social responsibility goals and their environmental commitments, and perhaps help them in trying to communicate their sustainability efforts, but if it costs more and impacts their bottom line negatively, it’s also one of the first things to go in a financial crunch.
What Squeaky has done is created a platform that allows businesses to purchase directly from clean energy generators in their own local area, which not only helps the business by getting them powered by renewables at the same cost as conventional electricity, but it also helps support and grow local renewable energy generators as well.
“What Squeaky customers are actually doing is going straight to the source, cutting out the middleman. The Squeaky platform allows energy buyers to effectively buy at wholesale prices directly from generators rather than at retail prices from a big brand name energy company, often with the added cost of a broker. We just provide the framework to make the process safe and easy for everyone – buyers and generators alike.” – Squeaky
Allowing businesses to purchase directly from generators also helps the generator financially, by cutting out some of the margin that is lost to the middleman, as Squeaky founder Chris Bowden tells FastCoExist:
“The typical margin between a generator and customer might be 20% to 50% depending on the size of the transaction, and much of this margin is lost on intermediaries, credit costs, trading costs, and high-legacy industry costs, including inefficient systems and processes. Squeaky is able to cut this margin in half so both sides benefit.”
According to the company, Squeaky has “exclusive access to one of the largest portfolios of solar, wind, and biomass energy in the UK,” so there’s plenty of domestic renewable electricity available, with no need to import from overseas. In addition, the company claims that its electricity supply is backed by Europe’s largest renewable generator, “which has an A- credit rating – better than British Gas or Npower,” which may help alleviate any concerns about either financial risk or supply risk during periods of fluctuating renewables generation.
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